Finding a Path
by Nanako Daiskue
Summary: Naruko is depressed after failing graduation exams. Mizuki takes advantage of this. And just who is this hooded figure helping Mizuki out? Join Naruko as she embarks on a quest to figure out who she is, and what she is meant to do in the world. FemNaru.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: At first I kinda wanted to make a female Naruto, but then I went ahead and got way too creative with it, so she ended up being more like an OC. I hope you guys don't mind too much.

* * *

Naruko sat on the swing, staring at the ninja graduates. They had passed, she hadn't. Naruko was angry, but of course she couldn't show it. As the years went by, she had come to realize that getting angry had done nothing for her. Every time she would throw a tantrum or yell uncontrollably at the world, nobody would be there to listen to her. It wasn't fair.

Naruko knew that she wasn't the best ninja in her class, that right belonged to that damned Uchiha. But still…she never would've thought that she'd be so horrible that she wouldn't pass. It was all that damned clone jutsu's fault! If those damn academy teachers hadn't used it as a test, then she would've graduated! She had passed all the other test's; barely, mind you, but she had still passed. Iruka-sensei was too mean. She just wanted him to let it slide this one time so she could become a ninja, but he didn't, and now it was onto another year at the academy.

Naruko looked up at the other children, they looked happy. They had their parents there to congratulate them, so of course they'd look happy. Naruko just hated them sometimes.

* * *

Mizuki was watching. He was _always_ watching. This would be perfect. She would be perfect for his plans.

The young academy girl was a complete and utter failure. She scored lowly on all of the exams, and had even failed one, true, but she had potential, true potential.

Yes, she was the container of the Kyuubi, she would be perfect.

Once he had gotten her to steal the forbidden scroll, he would take her out of the village and find the certain someone who had come up with this plan. He would use the scroll as leverage against this hooded figure and get them to train her. When she was strong enough, he would use her as his own personal little weapon, and then he would become powerful, much more powerful than anybody in this damn village.

He walked up to the young redhead, smiling. "Naruko, why the long face? I'm sure with enough practice you could conquer this exam next year."

Naruko looked at him with a blank expression, but there was still a hint of sadness in her blue eyes. " I don't understand why I'm not good enough." The tears started welling up. "I always tried my hardest; I always did! But it's never enough!" She was sobbing now, and unconsciously started hugging Mizuki.

Mizuki was shocked, but he couldn't let himself show it. _Who knew monsters had feelings, _he thought sarcastically_. _He finally responded, trying to sound as nice as possible, as if he were a stranger trying to get a little girl to eat his candy. "Hey, Naruko, you know what? There just might be a way for you to graduate after all…"

Her crying lessened at she looked up at him. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." He smiled softly at her. "All you need to do is get this scroll…"

Naruko genuinely smiled for the first time in a long time.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry if the last chapter was too short. I'll try to make them longer.

* * *

Naruko was happy. She was genuinely happy for the first time in ages. Sure, Mizuki-sensei was asking her to do something that might not be entirely moral, but he was trying to _help _her, which was more than she could say about anything else. Yeah, Iruka-sensei was nice to her; he even treated her to ramen sometimes, but he would never try to _train_ her outside of class.

This was just too good to be true.

Naruko was currently looking over the scroll she had just stolen. _Interesting,_ she thought, _It says something here about a shodow clone jutsu. _But before she could get a chance to practice the jutsu, she heard a voice.

"Naruko! What do you think you're doing!" The voice sounded desperate. When Naruko turned to the voice, she turned to see a shocked Iruka. "I'd heard that you were the one that took the scroll, but I couldn't bring myself to believe it until now. Why?!"

Naruko dropped the scroll and stared down guiltily. "What do you mean, sensei? Mizuki-sensei told me that if I learn from this scroll, then I would be able to graduate the academy…"

Iruka's look of shock quickly changed to one of a man deeply betrayed. "That damn _bastard_! Listen to me, Naruko! You have to return the scroll! Mizuki's been lying to you, he only wants to get his hands on the scroll!"

"That's where you would be wrong, Iruka." Mizuki came out from behind one of the trees. "All I really want is to give this poor girl a place where she'll be loved and happy."

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Iruka replied.

Mizuki laughed. "It is what it sounds like, Iruka." He walked over to Naruko and stepped in front of her. "I'm going to take this child away from a village that hates her." That was when Mizuki quickly turned and pushed Naruko into a tree trunk, knocking her unconscious.

* * *

Iruka was having a very bad day to say the least. First, he had to fail one of his precious students. Second, he had to watch her sit out while everyone else was being congratulated by their _parents,_ which he knew would affect Naruko. And now, his best friend had betrayed the village and is now trying to kidnap said student. Yes, this just wasn't his day.

"Why the hell did you just do that?!" Iruka shouted, even angrier than before.

"Well, we couldn't have the little monster knowing what I really think of her, now can we? Besides, won't that little abomination heal herself eventually." Mizuki walked closer to Iruka. "Tell me, Iruka, what do you think you should do about this."

Iruka was angrier than ever. With a loud grunt Iruka charged forward, kunai in hand. Mizuki dodged his attack easily. "You're going to have to do better than that if you want to face me."

Iruka jumped back, pulling out a shuriken. "Don't get too cocky, Mizuki."

"Oh, is that right?" Mizuki responded, dodging Iruka's shuriken. "Then, maybe I should start to play dirty…"

It was then that Mizuki pulled out a shuriken of his own and threw it straight towards the unconscious Naruko. Iruka noticed just in time, and intercepted the throw, the shuriken landing, almost poetically, deep in his heart. Iruka then proceeded to fall dead on the ground.

With Naruko still unconscious, Mizuki had time to remove the shuriken from Iruka, turn him around so that he would be lying face down just a few feet away from Naruko, placing the shuriken in his back, and placing a kunai in his hands.

* * *

The first thing Naruko saw when she woke up was a dead Iruka-sensei.

She was horrified, to say the least, but before she could let out a scream, Mizuki was there to place a hand over her mouth. "Shh, Naruko, we can't have you screaming, or somebody else will come to kill you."

The poor girl looked even more horrified, if that were possible. "What do you mean? Iruka-sensei wouldn't do anything like that…"

"You poor naïve thing. You don't understand anything, do you? Don't you want to know why everybody in this village hates you; don't you want to know why they all give you cold stares and walk away when you come around the corner?"

"I don't understand…" Some of the horror had come off of her face, only to be replaced with confusion.

"Of course you wouldn't. And I can tell you everything once we get out of the village."

The young girl reluctantly nodded and followed Mizuki out of the village through a small forest path few people knew about, but only after Mizuki insisted on placing a strange looking seal on both of them.

* * *

Mizuki was overjoyed. His plan actually worked. It had actually _worked!_ This meant that he was one step closer to his beloved power. And once he reaches the next goal…He stopped the journey as he heard a soft groan. He turned to see the younger traveler stand on a branch almost in tears.

Mizuki sighed. "What is it now? We really need to keep moving if we want to reach the meeting point before daybreak."

The tears were slowly disappearing, being replaced by a fierce determination in the child's eyes. "I am _not _moving from this spot until you tell me what you _promised_ to tell me!"

Mizuki sighed again. "Geez kid, can you cut the attitude?" Naruko only responded with a glare. "Okay, _okay. _Fine, I'll tell you." The glare disappeared and was replaced with a triumphant smile. "But you aren't going to like it." The smile remained, but was lessened.

"Remember twelve years ago, when the nine-tailed fox attacked Konoha?" The girl didn't seem to like where this was going.

"You mean, the Kyuubi?"

"Yep. Maybe you actually have some brains after all. Well, the Fourth Hokage didn't actually kill it when it attacked…" Mizuki seemed to have a glint of mischief in his eye "…he sealed it inside a child. And well, you're a smart girl, tell me the rest."

The girl looked horrified once again. "The Kyuubi…is sealed inside of me."

"Yep! Congratulations, you figured it out."

The girl stared towards the ground. "So then, why did Iruka-sensei…"

Mizuki chuckled and then finished her sentence. "…kill you? Well, you see, you killed his parents."

The girl looked surprised. "What?"

"Oh, don't look so shocked; you've killed a lot of people, you are the Kyuubi after all." Mizuki smiled at her coldly.

"I…I…don't know what to say…" Naruko then proceeded to burst into tears, pulling Mizuki into a hug with her. But of course, when she was hugging him, she failed to see the rather evil-looking expression on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Yeah…, I realize that my pacing has kind of sucked in the last chapters, and the grammatical errors are pretty bad too. So, I'm going to try and make the chapters WAY longer, and I'll also be sure to try and fix the pacing.

I know the first two chapters have kinda sucked, but I'd like to think I'm getting the hang of things. I promise I'll get better eventually. Just have patience.

* * *

The Sandaime was, to put it lightly, pissed.

"What do you mean there isn't any way to track them down?!" He slammed his fist on his desk, making a few usually very calm ANBU members jump slightly.

"Lord Hokage…, it's a mystery. The chakra that was found at the field with Iruka's body doesn't seem to lead anywhere. It's like Mizuki and the girl just vanished out of thin air." The ANBU sent to investigate the situation were quite confused. The entire situation was just…strange. It was first thought that the girl was acting on her own, but now that Mizuki was missing as well… It just didn't make sense; if the Kyuubi had taken control, then there would be loads of chakra leftover to track and much destruction left in its wake.

And then there was Iruka… He had obviously been moved from the position that he had died in into a more incriminating position. It appeared as if somebody were trying to make it look as if he were attacking somebody or something. But _why_ would somebody want to do that?

It didn't help that the Hokage was too angry to try and make sense of the situation.

"Dammit! It doesn't make sense, only a master at chakra control can hide their signatures so well." The Sandaime took a deep breathe, trying to calm down a bit. _Breathe, _he reminded himself. It wasn't like him to get so riled up in an intense situation. _You're getting worse at being calm as you get older; you really need to be more calm in this situation. _The Hokage took another deep breathe.

"I know the situation doesn't make a lot of sense, but let's look at the facts." The Sandaime reached for his pipe, and proceeded to take a smoke. "Both Mizuki and Naruko are missing as of right now. It's obvious that they took the forest path out of the village, but all traces of their chakra had vanished at the field; this makes it so that we cannot track their movements beyond the village exit."

The Hokage took another smoke from his pipe.

"It's obvious that Iruka has been framed; he was killed and then placed in that incriminating position. I would think that it's safe to assume Mizuki was trying to either earn Naruko's trust or trying to scare the girl into coming with him."

The boar-masked ANBU spoke up at that moment. "But sir, how can you be sure this is the case?"

The Hokage answered with a mischievous smile on his face. "I was watching."

The ANBU realized what this meant. "You mean…the telescope technique?"

"Yes, that would be the case. However, I was only able to see a limited amount of the scene before the girl's chakra was disrupted."

The Hokage had a serious look on his face. "I also don't believe Mizuki could do this alone. It is very likely that he is working with another unknown person or persons who could possibly be very powerful."

The ANBU were not surprised by the Leaf Village's leader's next statement. "Boar, Cat, I need you both to investigate this situation. Your objective will be to rescue academy student Naruko Uzumaki, and capture Mizuki alive to be brought in for interrogation! This will be an S-ranked mission! You are now dismissed!"

The ANBU immediately shunshined out of the Hokage office, allowing the Hokage to let himself fall prey to his distress. He sank into the back of his chair, and took another deep breathe.

He was feeling guilty to say the very least. He should have been watching her more closely; he should have done something. He _could_ have done something, he could have done THAT. Wait, no, he couldn't have. He can never do THAT again.

* * *

This little brat was really pissing Mizuki off.

After she was done bawling her eyes out, she had the audacity to blow her nose into his vest. And there was a LOT of snot in that little girl's nose. Seriously, the stuff was probably going to take weeks to wash out. And then, she started spouting out all this crap about how she "was done crying", "wasn't going to let her emotions beat her on the path to light", and how she "was _definitely_ not a crybaby." Yes, because that was _so_ apparent at this point. And when he told her to shut up, she had the gall to yell at him the whole way to the cabin about how awful of an academy teacher he was for not allowing his students to boost their confidence. Either the situation they were in hadn't dawned on her yet, or she was just trying to annoy him. He was betting on the latter. She wouldn't shut up for the entire trip. And to top it all off, Mizuki was the one that had to carry the scroll.

So of course, Mizuki was _beyond_ thrilled when they had finally arrived.

"This is the place?" The girl asked, looking mildly surprised.

"Of course it is." Mizuki answered, "Do you see any _other_ buildings anywhere near here?" Nevertheless, Mizuki could understand why the girl could be surprised. When he had first heard about this place, he was definitely not expecting a 40 by 40 foot beaten down cabin in the woods that sort of looked like it had been rotting.

Naruko glared at the man. "You know, you don't have to be so sarcastic! You were never like this in the academy!"

The man sighed. "Yeah, well, I never got to act like me in that village."

The girl's glare could be seen changing into a sort of pitying look, but she wouldn't let him see it for too long. "Just because that's 'who you are', that doesn't give you the right to act like an ass to everybody once you aren't in a city! I honestly don't understand you're logic here."

Mizuki was annoyed. "Whatever, let's just go inside. There's somebody you need to meet."

The two walked inside the old cabin, only to find it empty.

"What the hell?! She told me that she'd be waiting for me when she came back! Why wouldn't she be here?!" Mizuki, in a fit of anger, decided to kick a wall, only to discover that walls were not meant to be kicked. "OW!"

"Serves you right." A figure with a white-hooded cloak and a feminine voice was standing by the door, arms crossed.

"Where the hell were you?!" Mizuki stated, still clutching his foot in pain.

"I was getting food. You know, the stuff that's necessary for _life."_

"Whatever." Mizuki was finally able to place his foot on the floor, even if he winced in pain just a little bit. "If the deal's still on, let's talk business."

* * *

A/N: Okay, so it wasn't that much longer. But I have trouble writing long chapters, so this is sort of my limit.

Oh, and anybody who guesses the hooded figure's identity gets brownie points.


End file.
